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Fighting the good fight…still

The ICU

Bob’s mom had a stroke last week. Stayed for 4 days in the same ICU where mom died. It was a rough week…on many levels.
Marge is miraculously recovered from her stroke with minimal residual weakness. They happened to refer her to a hematologist to determine why the she had critically low Red Blood Cells though. So she flew home to Ohio and will start down the path to discovering….what? Why she’s not making blood? Why she’s apparently losing blood – but not bleeding? God help her.

So going into the ICU again, riding up the elevator, walking through the waiting room…all familiar. But that’s not my memory of mom. That place, that physical location holds a very strong memory for me, but not the memory of my mom. The memory of her leaving is not the same as the memory of HER. Make sense? But the memory of her leaving, which is really quite amazing, rushed back to me last week.

When mom was admitted to the ICU, she was very sick. As a matter of fact, she never regained consciousness once moved to the ICU. I don’t know how long she was there, time was a blur. But I do know from reading the hospital bills later, she was not even in the hospital for 24 hours…from the time of the ER admission the night before, to the night when she left us…less than 24 hours.

I think we brought her to the ER at 2am, Sunday. Mother’s Day. She was gone by 11pm that evening.
But the way she left, the way we released her….that’s the story I want to tell.